1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to computer systems and, in particular, to graphical user interfaces. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to changing the alpha levels of a displayable object within a graphical user interface to indicate a status of a computing task.
2. Description of the Related Art
Most computer systems include multiple types of software for controlling the functions of the computer system. A first type of software is system software (operating systems), which controls the workings of the computer. A second main type of software is applications, such as word processing programs, spreadsheets, databases, and browsers, which perform the tasks for which people use computers. In addition, a computer system may include network software, which enables groups of computers to communicate, and language software, which provides programmers with the tools they need to write programs.
Software contains many instructions typically executed by a processor and other hardware within a computer system. As instructions are executed, the status or progress of multiple parts of the computer system is often monitored. In particular, the status is the condition, at a particular time, of any of numerous elements of computing including, but not limited to, a device, a communications channel, a network station, a software program, a bit, or another element. A status may be utilized to report on or to control computing tasks.
Most operating systems provide a graphical user interface (GUI) for controlling a visual computer environment. The GUI represents programs, files, and options with graphical images, such as icons, menus, and dialog boxes on the screen. Graphical items defined within the GUI work the same way for the user in most software because the GUI provides standard software routines to handle these elements and report the user's actions.
A typical graphical object defined by a GUI is a window or other defined area of a display containing distinguishable text, graphics, video, audio and other information for output. A display area may contain multiple windows associated with a single software program or multiple software programs executing concurrently.
Often when multiple graphical objects are displayed concurrently, the graphical objects will overlap. The order in which graphical objects are drawn on top of one another onscreen to simulate depth is typically known as the z-order. Typically, those objects at the top of the z-axis obscure the view of those graphical objects drawn below.
Monitoring software may be provided for a user to select to display the status of computing tasks within the GUI. In particular, such monitoring software typically utilizes an additional window, overlapping other open windows, for displaying tables of status information. Requiring an additional window to display monitored status information about computing tasks limits the total amount of screen space and may completely obscure the windows for which status information is being received. Further, typically monitored information is not described in a manner such that it is easily distinguishable from one application window to another.
Therefore, in view of the foregoing, it would be advantageous to provide a method, system, and program for displaying status information about computing tasks according to each application window, wherein open application windows are not obscured by the display. Further, it would be advantageous to display such information status information about computing tasks according to each application window where overlapping windows will not obscure the status information.